My Hollow Knight: Silksong hopes were dashed by Summer Game Fest

Welp. Silksongers, we once again find ourselves at the end of a big gaming conference — Summer Game Fest 2025, this time — with no news of Team Cherry’s long-awaited Xbox Game Pass-bound Metroidvania sequel whatsoever. No new gameplay, no official release date. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch, even!

Considering how pitifully little we’ve seen of Hollow Knight: Silksong since it was first announced over six years ago in early 2019, you’d think the sting of disappointment would have long since numbed. This time around, though, showrunner Geoff Keighley rubbed salt in the wound by taking a playful shot at hopeful fans during a scripted segment of the presentation.

The jab came during Keighley’s introduction skit for the reveal trailer for Marvel Games’ upcoming 2025 Deadpool VR. In it, he reads a letter that was addressed to him by Wade Wilson himself as part of a bit.

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“You’re gonna do me a solid and skip that Silksong trailer so you can pimp my revolutionary VR gaming venture that will shock the industry probably,” the letter read.

A gameplay screenshot of Hollow Knight: Silksong. (Image credit: Team Cherry)

Ouch. That one hurt — though I am very down for Neil Patrick Harris Deadpool, even if I don’t have a VR headset yet. Regardless, Wade has no chill, and neither does Geoff Keighley.

A major part of what makes it hurt is that, as I said, next to nothing has been shown of Silksong in the last six years. There have barely been any trailers at all, with the game notably catching an indefinite delay in 2023. We eventually got word it had a 2025 release window in April from a nine-second clip in Nintendo’s Switch 2 Direct, but Team Cherry hasn’t been forthcoming with anything otherwise.

Given that expectations are sky-high since the original 2017 title Hollow Knight stands out as one of the best Metroidvania games ever made, Silksong’s absence hasn’t curbed interest in the sequel whatsoever. Instead, it’s done the opposite by making fans ravenously desperate for any scrap of news they can get. It’s Elden Ring all over again.

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To add insult to injury, the backend of Silksong’s Steam page has been updated several times in recent days, giving many hope that a new trailer, a release date, preorders, or perhaps even a shadow drop of the action platformer would be at Summer Game Fest. And yet, once again, we’re all left wanting.

I believe. I believe. I believe. Come on, Microsoft. (Image credit: Team Cherry)

There is one last beacon of hope, though. One solitary ray of sunshine in this dark, cruel world: the 2025 Xbox Games Showcase. It’s scheduled for Sunday, June 8 at 10:00am PT / 1:00 pm ET — and you’d better believe I’m huffing that hopium.

Microsoft’s annual summer gaming presentation always gives Xbox and PC players a closer look at several upcoming experiences they can look forward to enjoying on their systems and through the company’s Xbox Game Pass service. And with Hollow Knight: Silksong coming to Game Pass on day one, I’d say the announcement of its release date would serve perfectly as one of Microsoft’s big reveals.

Very little is known about what Microsoft plans to show this year outside of there being a dedicated showcase for Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds 2 happening right after the main event. Xbox’s games marketing vice president Aaron Greenberg noted that fans shouldn’t “overhype it too much,” tempering expectations, but even so — surely Microsoft wants some bombshells to drop, and what better surprise would there be other than a Hollow Knight: Silksong release date?

I don’t dare hope for something as wild as a Silksong shadow drop during the show, but if you ask me, there’s a fairly good chance we’ll at least see Team Cherry’s feverishly anticipated follow-up get a release date.

And if we don’t? Well, I’m used to the heartbreak. I am a Bloodborne fan, after all.